Individualist-collectivist differences in adolescent decision making and decision styles with Chinese and Anglos

The study examines cross-cultural and gender differences in decision making and decisionmaking style among adolescent students. The responses of 69 An gles (31 males and 38 females) and 70 Chinese (34 males and 36 females) to three decision dilemmas are compared in terms of individualist versus colle ctivist choices, reasons for the choice, and the extent to which four decis ion styles (avoidance, complacency, hypervigilance, and vigilance) are used . As predicted, compared with Angles, Chinese students exhibit more collect ivist tendencies in decision choices and reasons for choice and score highe r on avoidant, complacent, and hypervigilant decision styles with only a sm all difference in relation to the vigilant style. The relation of the indiv idualist-collectivist dimension to the findings on the decision styles is d iscussed. Post-hoc exploratory principal components analyses of the style i tems revealed the existence of a style that might be better labelled as an interdependent style. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.